Is it a dessert or is it a beer?

• The ale is an experiment
• Can be paired with deep fried Mars bar

A Kelowna craft brewery has concocted a drink that it's creator says is like ‘if beer and white chocolate had a baby’.

Welton Arms Craft Beer and Restaurant is a British style establishment and opened a little more than a year ago. They pride themselves on making traditional English ales but also experimental drinks.

Kelowna10 spoke with Paul Rakoczy, the head brewer, who explained the inspiration for Wilding White Chocolate Ale was the wedding of owner Simon Welton to his fiancé Lauren.

"He wanted to brew a couple beers for his wedding guests. So, he wanted to have something approachable and something a little bit different, more interesting," Rakoczy said. “Something that people could try and say like ‘oh, I’ve never had something like that before.’”

To create a white chocolate ale, they started with a light-coloured base beer recipe made to mimic a milkshake.

Most beers are made using barley or wheat. To increase the haziness and thickness of the Wilding they added extra wheat and flaked oats.

The actual white chocolate flavouring was added after the fermentation via a syrup resembling what people put in their morning cup of coffee.

When sampled by this reporter, the ale did have an authentic white chocolate taste, that was very sweet, and had a very smooth consistency. It swirled in the glass like a stout, similar to Guinness, after it was poured.

Welton, the owner of the restaurant, said they brew using nitrogen which also contributes to the creamy mouth feel.

In order to make the white chocolate flavouring the dominant taste, they avoided anything that might make it bitter or harsh. So, they avoided roasted malts or anything that could make the drink hoppy.

“It’s important in all recipe design with beer to make sure whatever your focal point is, it’s not drowned out by the other noise that you put into your beer,” Welton explained.

Both Welton and Rakoczy are happy with the finished product. They recommend pairing it with dessert like Welton Arms’ deep fried Mars bar. Hard to get a sweeter combination than that.

But, as Welton added, he hopes to continue improving with the recipe’s next batch.

“Every single batch of beer we make, we usually make a slight adjustment to see if we can make it better. We don’t sit on our laurels here, we keep going.”